Cigarettes
by WellEverythingOriginalWasTaken
Summary: The times when things seem so close to something tangible is often when true character is revealed. How deeply have the past years affected Remus and Sirius, and is there any coming back from it? RL/SB


**A/N Once more I own nothing yet am far too attached to everything. Thanks to JK Rowling as ever, and enjoy.**

* * *

Remus has cultivated a habit of being invisible, and over the years Sirius has wondered if it's a defence mechanism. As Sirius descends the stairs eyes lift, heads rise and smiles form. He wonders if they all realise that Remus is amongst them, even as he walks past them all and flops onto the seat next to him. He asks if he's all right, asks _Moony_ if he's all right, and for the first time he looks up from his book, seeming poised to say something but then he closes it and sets it down on his lap, raising his index and middle finger to his bottom lip. Sirius nods and they both get up, returning to the dorm he knows to be empty. Remus, _Remus_ now that they're alone, takes the packet out from his trunk and waits for Sirius to open the window. He lights one, and Sirius wonders if they pack has all but run out. It's the end of term after all. The pack is in Remus' pocket now, not crumpled, and he watches as Remus closes his lips around the cigarette and inhales. He's still inhaling as he holds it out to Sirius, who remains blinking at him, for a few seconds, before focusing on the glowing orange tip and takes it from him.

"Do you think they'll go through with it?" He had to find a way to change the subject, he hated how unsettled he often felt when it was just the two of them.

"I do. They love each other. You don't get engaged for nothing." He was looking out of the window now, one arm wrapped around his torso, the other resting on the knee of the leg propped on the windowsill, waiting to take the cigarette back. His fingers dangle and Sirius wonders if they would swing in the breeze if the window was open wider. "Why, don't you?"

"No. I do." After exhaling he passes it back to Remus, who just holds it. He watches it burning down, towards the long fingers it's gripped between, and a horrible sense of something builds within him. "They love each other. You're right."

"I am." Sirius doesn't know if Remus is mocking him or not. He often doesn't. He doesn't know that Remus feels the same a majority of the time. If he just reached out to take that damn cigarette he could brush his hand against Remus', but he settles for staring at it.

He can tell he's going to start babbling soon; Remus has an uncanny ability to be able to just... stagnate. But he can't stop himself. "I can't believe this is nearly all over. Can you?"

Remus carries on staring out of the window, wondering if he can see a figure out in the darkness, or if they really are alone. It's been rarer and rarer recently, and he doesn't know if he likes that or not. Either way, it's probably a good thing. Sirius wonders if he has heard him. "No," he says.

"No more homework I suppose." No attempt at a joke has ever sounded more sorrowful. Remus snorts, but it isn't a snort. But at least it stops him looking out of the damn window. Hadn't Sirius been a recipient of gazes that intent? He was sure they had made him feel strange, so why does he want to punch that window through now? Then it's there. Eye contact. Remus' foot slips and lands on the floor, and now he's facing Sirius, their ties loose, their sleeves rolled up, for what Sirius doesn't know. The cigarette wasn't done yet but Remus let it fall from his hand and stomped it out, not checking to make sure his aim had been correct. Sirius can see his arms straining, braced against the windowsill, can imagine his thigh muscles tense, ready to spring into action, waiting for some signal. "Moony." It's gone.

Remus wishes he hadn't stubbed out the cigarette; he can't be bothered to light another. He closes the window and rests his back against it, the coolness spreading through him, but doing nothing of any real impact. He pushes down his sleeves. If Sirius was close enough he might do the same to his sleeves. "Yes?"

"Are you still going home?" He knows he is.

He knows that Sirius knows he is. "Yes."

Sirius nods, wondering what he expected to hear. Wanted to hear. If he wanted a plea to come and stay with him, to live a life that they hadn't even discussed, but both knew had always been at the border between what they were and what they could be."If you need to, for the wedding, I have..."

"Thanks."

They settle into silence, each attempting to work out who they are now. They're not Padfoot and Moony, and Remus still can't shake the use of that those few minutes ago. They're only Padfoot and Moony when there's the four of them. There can only be the four of them. It couldn't work just Padfoot and Moony. Perhaps it could work Sirius and Remus. They both have growing up to do. Maybe all that needs to happen is that they grow into their names. Not Black and Lupin. Too many implications, too many hurdles set up for them before the pistol has even been fired, before they've even gotten to the starting line. But maybe if Remus visits Sirius. And they stay, in that Sirius' flat, as the two of them. Maybe, just maybe, Sirius and Remus could be.

* * *

Why couldn't it have been Sirius' flat, he thinks as he lurches about the house at night, trying to remember which floorboards not to step on, which portraits not to alarm. Disturb. Alert. It's the Black's house. And he is Lupin. He couldn't bring himself to tell Dumbledore that. What reason was it to turn down a job he needed in so many ways, that he couldn't bear to be known as his last name? The year had been hard for a multitude of reasons, he had known it would be, and that just added to it. Lupin in the Black house. He would have laughed if he could. Boiling the kettle would be too noisy, in the middle of the night, so he stops, tries to remember where the glasses are so that he doesn't have to rummage and risk breakages. Footsteps pad behind him, and he nearly tells Sirius how inappropriate that is, how this is no time for nicknames, but he quickly realises that he won't understand what he's saying. He isn't sure how much Sirius does understand now.

"We could find somewhere else." A low voice cracks midway through the sentence behind him. "I could pay for it. We could smoke all day and you could buy horribly shabby furniture and leave your briefcase out and it would be fine."

"I don't want the briefcase left out." How could Sirius think that he would? He moves to the window. "And we wont, we can't."

"A fresh start." Once again Sirius is longing for him to just look at him. After over a decade of being unable to being able to steal a glimpse any time he wanted. He had taken it for granted, he realised that as soon as it was lost, and now Remus was just staring out of the damn window. Again. He sighs and then suddenly Remus is staring at him, looking older and younger and so different to the person that Sirius had thought he had known for all these years. He simultaneously looks like a man who has witnessed too many horrendous things to be able to distinguish them for one another, and a boy who can't understand why they have happened. And Sirius knows he doesn't have any answers.

"No." It isn't the silence between them, they had always coped with silences. Silences were promising when they were young, silences had become divine for the shortest of periods, and it nauseates Remus to think of that time. Their silences weren't silences anymore. He would hear Sirius at night, terrible tormented sounds that he was sure he had learnt from the shack and adopted and used as his own. And moments like these, cries, laughs, rejections, pleas, moans all swirled between them, filling the gaps between their words until Remus felt like someone was stood on his chest. It would be the complete opposite of healthy, and whilst those years ago, they had seemed like a good risk to gamble on, now they couldn't. "But it wouldn't be a fresh start. That's one of the things we'll never have." Remus closes the gap between them slightly, and Sirius is finding it hard to breathe. He puts a hand on his shoulder and Sirius wonders what it could turn into, but then his shoulder is devoid of the pressure and Remus has stepped back. "See."

"Moony..." He's done it again. Only now it's pathetic, not charged with something possibly cataclysmic, something that for the shortest of times seemed life affirming. And possible.

"Maybe you should try to get some more sleep." He hates to hear Remus like that, struggling so, but he can't reply. It had been their honeymoon too, holed up in the flat and he wishes he could convey the fact that he would condemn himself to the past twelve years time and time again to be able to feel with the intensity that he felt with then. Those months were when he did all of his living.

They stare at each other, both knowing that it could be so easy, so, so easy to say it to one another, to declare that they could move on, that they could cope and grow and help each other. It's a testament to the fact that they've grown, which they had been given the chance to when so many hadn't, that they don't give in to what they want. They do what they need to. Padfoot and Moony are gone, and maybe that's for the best; that's respectful and that's sensible.

"It would have been nice though, wouldn't it?"

"It would have been glorious."

Maybe, just maybe, Sirius and Remus could have been.


End file.
